


Untitled (or, 'In Which I Fix Downton Abbey S3 To Fit My Shipping Preferences and Otherwise Avert Tragedy')

by websandwhiskers



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M, Family Drama, Fix-it fic, Romance, utter self-indulgent crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-28 21:09:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/websandwhiskers/pseuds/websandwhiskers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of Edith/Anthony (and one Sybil/Tom) ficbits, going AU from about 15 minutes before the end of episode 3.03, in which I write a lovely little happily-ever-after for everybody (while borrowing some of the less dire canon drama), the end.  See individual chapters for notes / warnings / etc.<br/>(If you're looking for something edgy or possessed of much in the way of a plot, keep looking.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I ship Edith/Anthony, and thus, obviously, the wedding-that-wasn't left me NOT AMUSED. But his being written out of the series in that way, after how he'd been written to date, left me even less amused - because IMO, he was portrayed as suffering from PTSD. 
> 
> If you don't believe me, go back and watch season 1 again - he's obviously still grieving for his late wife, but in that stage where he's begun to be able to think of her fondly, and he wants to carry on with his life. He seems to be actively seeking a second wife. He's talking about updating his estate and mechanization and is involved in world politics. 
> 
> Now watch him in season 3; he's suddenly viewing himself as old and useless, wants to believe his life isn't over but doesn't, he won't go anywhere unless dragged, he's constantly denigrating himself, doesn't talk about anything as if it interests him, and the only time we see any real spirit from him is when he's telling off what's-his-name who spiked Branson's drink (in other words, when he's speaking up for *someone else*, not himself). Dude is depressed. Dude became depressed on account of going to war and coming back minus a useful arm. 
> 
> They didn't have a specific diagnosis for that in 1920, but we damned well do now, and given that, I find the way his character's story was handled in canon absolutely unconscionable. Because gee, do we have anybody coming home from a war right now? Is that a thing, in the present? Maybe? And what message does this portrayal of the character give such folks? "Oh, you were injured in war and have lost all sense of yourself and purpose in life? Well then, you're fucked. Do kindly get out of everyone's way, they're going to carry on just fine without you and never miss you or mention you again." 
> 
> GAH. No. Just no. 
> 
> . . . so that very much informs my writing of the character and was the main impetus to write this scene. It's not great literature, by any means, it's full of flowery language and it resolves itself much too quickly and it's basically unapologetic schmoop. But it acknowledges the issue and shows somebody caring and relating that yes, lots of people would and did feel this way too, for a variety of reasons, the fact that you are suffering in this manner does not make you an alien. Which was my point. 
> 
> Basically this was therapy fic because the canon was triggery for me and . . without putting this up as a tribute in any way AT ALL because he'd hate that and that'd be weird as it's romance and this person was family and it's not even very good writing and yeah, just no, but . . because I very much miss someone who came home with PTSD and did not stick around. So fuck you, canon writers, for your (non) handling of this issue. Fuck you very much. Excuse me while I reject your reality and substitute my own.
> 
> And now that the notes are longer than the fic . . . have some fic.

Anthony hadn’t – obviously, he hadn’t – considered how things might end, when he spoke.  For all the many hours that he had agonized over the right course of action, in the end, it had hardly been a decision at all, let alone a well-considered one – more like an explosion than anything else. 

Still, if he’d thought of what came next, being dragged off into the nearest room behind the sanctuary by an irate Irishman wouldn’t have been among the possibilities. 

Mr Branson had said something to the assembled guests, while Robert, God, Robert, sputtered in indignant rage – Anthony wondered, vaguely and without particular concern, if they were about to have a revival of the custom of dueling in Yorkshire.  When he was a boy, there would have been no question of it.

Anthony doubted he’d ever have a clear memory of what, exactly, Branson had said before manhandling him off to the side -  though he could vaguely recall, to his great shame, the young man mentioning something about a soldier’s nerves and his arm. 

“There’s nothing to be done,” Anthony insisted as he was all but thrown inside the room, then shoved into a chair.  Matthew Crawley followed Branson in and shut the door.  No sign of Robert, thank heaven – Anthony had no idea what he could possibly have said to the man. 

“Like hell there’s not,” Branson growled, his accent thick.  “I can’t say I don’t know what you’re thinking, but that doesn’t mean I can let you do it.”

“Let me -”  Anthony began, indignant.

“Consider it the return of a favor,” Branson overrode his objection.  “You saved me looking like a horse’s ass, and now I’ll do the same.”

“I’ve earned your insults -”

“Damn right you have,” Branson agreed.  “That woman out there is my sister, even if only by law – and you’re lucky it is only by law, because if you’d treated one of my own sisters that way, who I’d watched grow up, I’d have broke your nose by now.”

Not quite a duel, but near enough. 

“God, man, what were you thinking?” Matthew interjected, far more calmly, but in tones of deepest disappointment.

“That I had one last chance to do the right thing,” Anthony said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”   Anthony startled at this new, feminine voice- had hadn’t even heard the door open.

Matthew turned, frowning.  “Mary, perhaps this isn’t -”

“It is exactly my place and if you suggest otherwise, I will be forced to conclude that there isn’t a whole set of brains among the collected occupants of this room,” Mary went on, undeterred, and not even bothering to close the door properly behind her.  “Anyway, this is my place because this is entirely my fault.”

That brought every eye in the room to her, most especially Sir Anthony’s.  “Lady Mary, I – I don’t know why you would think that, but I can assure you it isn’t the case.  Any fault here is entirely my own.”

“I think it because it is true.  Were it not for me, you’d have been married years now,” Mary insisted.  “You might have had a child by now – you might have had half a dozen children by now if there hadn’t been a war in the middle.  The point is that you would have proposed the day the war broke out, Sir Anthony, and Edith most certainly would have said yes, and then, with none of our futures certain, no one would have had an unkind word to say to either of you about it.” 

“Your sister would have had a whole man for a husband, then,” Anthony protested.  “An old one, still, but at least not a cripple.”

“Yes, she would have,” Mary acknowledged.  “For a time.  And then she would have had you exactly as you are, and been sick with relief for it.  As I was,” she went on, with an apologetic glance in Matthew’s direction.  “As she was, and is, regardless.  Do you truly think so little of her?”

“Of course not!” Anthony said immediately, clearly aghast at the very idea.  “I think the world of her, that’s why -”

“Well then you should endeavor to know her better,” Mary went on, right over his protests.  “In all honesty, as ghoulish as it sounds, I’ve never seen Edith happier than she was when the war was on and our home made a hospital – when she had something to do, and people who appreciated it, because Lord knows she’d never had either there before.  She thrives on calamity, and wilts in the face of what others would call bliss.” 

“What Mary means -”  Matthew tried to begin, in conciliatory tones.

“What I mean is that if you think a crippled arm, a neglected estate and a very poor opinion of yourself make you a _less_ suitable husband for my sister, I begin to wonder if you’ve actually met her before today,” Mary overrode him.

“Good God, Mary!” Matthew snapped, grimacing.  “Is that really -”

“Honestly, what do you think you’re freeing her to do?” Mary barreled ahead.  “She isn’t Sybil, she hasn’t the fortitude to abandon our way of life entirely, and even presuming there’s some whole, healthy, _young_ man who’ll tolerate a dull, unfashionable wife with a fascination for farm equipment and the voicing of opinions no one wants to hear -”

“Now wait a moment -”  Anthony began.

“What?” Mary protested.  “She’s my sister, I’ve lived with her all my life, if anyone has a right to call her ill-tempered, childish and careless of her station, it’s me.  And she is.  Every bit of it.”

“You don’t think she’s earned a little charity, today?” Anthony argued, staring at Mary rather as if she’d grown a second head.  “After what I’ve put her through?”

“So now you admit you’ve been ghastly to her,” Mary pounced.  “That’s something.”

“Of course I’ve been ghastly, this whole matter is ghastly, I don’t know how I ever let it get this far!” Anthony retorted, his voice raising beyond a tone of hollow despair for the first time. 

“Charity?” Mary suggested, brow quirked.

“Good God, of course not!” Anthony exclaimed, outrage making him forget he addressed a lady.  “How can you speak of your own sister so?  I know precisely who and what she is, and I think it’s _admirable,_ highly admirable, of a woman to want to expand the sphere of her knowledge and her usefulness, and any man would be lucky to have -”

“Her opinions?” Mary prompted.  “All of them?”

“Yes, all of them!”

“Well then,” Mary said, smiling in a way that was a bit sad and sorry and at the same time, really not very nice at all.  “Considering it’s her opinion that she’s to be deliriously happy with you, I suppose that’s settled.” 

Anthony gaped.

“That isn’t -”

“It really is,” Tom piped in, giving Mary a look of frank admiration.  “It’s exactly what you just said.” 

“Unless you’d like to take back that fervent declaration,” Mary added.  “I should tell you, though, before you try it, that it’s been heard.  Edith,” she said, turning to speak to the door – ajar by a bare inch.  “I believe you can come in now.” 

She did, veil gone and face blotchy with tears, and with eyes only for Anthony, who stood the moment she entered. 

“Dearest -”  Anthony began.

“Don’t,” Edit interrupted.  “Don’t you dare call me your dearest and say – say those wonderful things, and then – if you’re just going to put me aside, abandon me, _humiliate_ me, then you’ve no right.” 

“I never had any right to you at all,” Anthony said.  “I never meant to hurt you.”

“Well you did,” Edith said.  “You are.  And unless you plan to – to go out there with me and make it right, I’ve nothing more to say to you.”  She stopped, chin firm for just a moment before a fresh burst of tears caught her, and she ducked her head.  “And I have so much more to say to you.  We could be happy.  We could be so very, very happy.  Why can’t you believe that?”

“We’ll be in the hall,” Matthew announced, and guided his wife in that direction with a firm hand about her waist, though Lady Mary managed to throw Anthony a look of hauty challenge over her shoulder.  Branson just gave him a small nod – encouragement, Anthony thought.   

The room was dreadfully quiet when they’d gone, save for Edith’s attempts not to sniffle. 

“Will you sit?” Anthony asked, gesturing at the chair.

“No.”  Edith shook her still down-turned head. 

And then silence, again.

“What if I’ve forgotten how to be happy?” Anthony finally said. 

“I thought I’d given you your life back,” Edith retorted.  “That was what you said.  Did you mean none of it?”

“Every word,” he swore, and reached out to tilt her chin up.  She let him pass a thumb across her cheek, barely touching, just collecting her tears, and then reached up to catch his hand there.  “But what if – dearest, what if I’m beyond mending?”

“Your arm doesn’t -”

“Not only my arm,” Anthony interrupted.  “There are days – there are days I can scarcely move myself from my bed.”

“It pains you still?” Edith asked, meeting his eyes and frowning.  “You never said.”

“It does pain me,” he admitted.  “Sometimes it feels as if the blasted thing is on fire, all up my shoulder, like being shot all over again.  But that’s not even it.”

“What, then?”

“What if I cannot tell you?”  Anthony said, voice low and miserable.  “Not that I won’t, but what – what if there are no words, and no remedy, and I am simply a man with one foot – one arm, if you will, in a grave, and no better off for not being all the way there?” 

Something changed in Edith’s face, at this, as he’d feared it might – but not in the _way_ he’d feared it might.  He didn’t see pity there, or disgust, but something more like realization.  Recognition, perhaps.  She looked not quite so lost, if no less somber for it.

“You think you ought to have died,” she said.  “In the war.”

“So many younger, better men did,” he told her.  “I lived, and for what?  To be a burden on a household I can longer manage, cowering in my rooms for fear of things I can’t even name, just waiting for death to realize it forgot me?  Oh don’t cry, dearest darling, please – not for that, not for me.  This is why I never told you.  I thought perhaps I could overcome it, for your sake, if you were so certain your happiness depended on me, but last night – it was the longest night of my life, and I realized -”

“You should have told me,” Edith insisted.

“If I’d half the courage of a mouse anymore, I would have, at the very start,” Anthony agreed – or meant to agree, but she was shaking her head in denial.  “I know I was selfish with you, Edith, unforgivably selfish.” 

“You should have told me -”  she stopped, swallowing down a shuddering sob, “so that I could have told you that I understood.  Oh, not what’s happened to you, how could I when I wasn’t there?  When I wasn’t shot, or maimed or gassed, when I didn’t have to watch anyone blown to pieces in front of me -”

“I was spared much of that, working in intelligence, it wasn’t -”

“ – but that you’re not alone, you’re not alone at all, I’ve heard so many – so many of those younger men you speak of, do you know how many felt just the same way?” 

“It’s what war does,” Anthony conceded uncertainly.  “I should have known better than to think you’d somehow been sheltered from it.” 

“You should have known better than to think I could possibly think any less of you for it!” Edith protested.  “And don’t _tell_ me that whatever you did, however you served, was any less of a horror.  I can see the horror of it, I can see it written in your face, right now.”

“And why should you have to stare at that, for the rest of your life?” he asked, as gently as he could.  “You don’t deserve that, darling – and I don’t have a lifetime left to me to recover, to find some way to forget another war.  I don’t care what Lady Mary says, you can find a happier life than that.”

“And if I did – if I found some young, carefree man who’d somehow escaped the worst of it, who didn’t mind that I like driving tractors and that I’m plain and I’m unbearably dull -”

“You are no such thing, don’t speak of yourself that way,” Anthony protested.

“- if I did,” Edith went on doggedly, “What could that man do, how could he understand, when my nightmares came?”

“Your -”

“I have one where we’re served dinner, proper as anything, only the dinner is all bodies,” Edith blurted.  “Burnt hands and mangled feet and staring dead faces.  And no one else seems to realize, they all just carry on as if it were pudding, and I don’t know what to say –

“Edith,” Anthony said, anguished.

“ – and everyone wants to know why I’m not eating, and I feel as though I’m going to be sick from the smell but I never quite am, and I want to scream but I can’t make a sound, and no one else _sees it,_ and -”

She’s crying in earnest now, and all he can do is gather her in with his one good arm and tuck her against his chest.  “You never said you were so troubled.”

“Of course I never said, how does one talk about that?” Edith muttered into his chest; he could feel her small hands fluttering there, not seeming to know where to settle, but so warm.  “Everyone thinks I’m so silly, anyway.”

“I don’t,” Anthony said.

“I know,” Edith answered.  “I don’t mean to compare it, you know.  What I saw here at home, and what you saw over there, what you endured.”

“You may have seen worse than I did,” Anthony protested.  “Lady Mary said – she thought you liked it, tending to the wounded.  That it gave you purpose.”

“I did,” Edith insisted.  “It did.  I’ve felt so useless, since, so cut adrift and lost and without anything of meaning to do – some days it feels like nothing will ever mean a thing, ever again, and my whole life just stretches out in front of me and all I can feel about it is tired.” 

“And -” he swallowed thickly.  “And I make you feel differently than all that?”

“Yes,” Edith said, tilting her face up to meet his eyes but not moving so much as an inch away.  Her arms came around his waist as she spoke, tentative and shy, but once there, they clung. 

“You want – Lady Mary seems to think you’re looking for project to take on,” Anthony ventured, not very happily.

“I shouldn’t speak badly of her after she’s gotten us this far, should I?” Edith said, brow lifted and lips quirked into an awkward half-twist.  “Yes, you make me feel like there’s some corner of the world left that might still need me – but not because I want to be your nursemaid, whatever Mary said.  I feel like you _hear_ me, see me, more than anyone ever has.” 

“I failed you in that, today,” he realized aloud, even as he felt at war within himself.  He was on the verge of giving in – no, he _had_ given in, the moment she’d described her nightmare.  All that remained to be seen was whether and to what extent he was going to hate himself for it in the years to come.  The only surety was that he’d be a worse villain yet if he did any differently, he could see that now – couldn’t bear the notion of her alone in that big house, with no one to confide in.  And there was, now, that _whether_ in his thoughts – the possibility that maybe, perhaps, if God had any grace left for him, they might make this right between them.

“You did,” Edith said into his shirt.  “But I’ll forgive you if you’ll stop it.”

“You’d still go forward with it, then?”

“I would,” Edith said fervently.

“We could postpone it,” Anthony offered.  “Let things settle, set another date -”

“And let your doubts pile up once more?” Edith retorted, more sharply than she’d yet spoken, and it took him momentarily aback.

Her gaze dropped away from his face, though her arms did not loosen their hold on him.  “It may take some time.  My forgiving you.  But I want no other life and no other husband.” 

“Good reason not to proceed today,” he tried again to offer. “I’m not sure you want to be cooped up on ship or a train with me, just now.”

“I’d be happily locked in a jail cell with you, just now,” Edith countered.  “At least I’d know you couldn’t leave me.” 

He flinched, and she clutched him tighter.  “But we can delay the honeymoon, if that’s what you’d rather,” she offered.  “I don’t care, honestly.  A hour ago it was so exciting, but now I just – I don’t care.  I want to go home, with you, to _our_ home, and get out of this ridiculous dress and eat something plain and filling for luncheon and go to bed.” 

And then she blushed, visible even with her face downcast and tucked to his chest, turning scarlet to the roots of her hair.

“I didn’t mean – oh, damn it all, yes I did,” Edith confessed into his waistcoat.  “And propriety can go hang.” 

It startled a laugh from him, which brought her face up, still red but smiling – that hopeful, uncertain smile that was all at odds with what he knew her truly to be.  This woman was made of iron, delicately wrought, perhaps, but iron just the same.

“What if we sent the guests away?  All but your family, of course,” Anthony suggested.

“Why is that ‘of course’?” Edith asked sourly. 

“You wouldn’t want them?”

“I never thought I’d say this, but the only one of them I want to look at right now is Mary,” Edith admitted with a little laugh.  “Oh, that’s not fair to Sybil, I can’t be cross with her either.  Or Matthew or Tom, I suppose.  But I think if I have to set eyes on either Papa or Grandmama right now, I might throw something at them.” 

“They only want what’s best for you,” Anthony said.

“I think to want what’s best for a person, you have to actually realize that person exists, as a person, with thoughts and feelings,” Edith answered sharply, and Anthony had no retort to that but to tuck his chin down into the crown of her hair.

“Mr Matthew and Lady Mary, then, and Mr and Mrs Branson,” Anthony said.  “That’s enough witnesses.”

“You want no one from your side?” Edith asked. 

“I think I’ve given my sister quite enough to fill months of scandalized, scolding letters already,” he said ruefully.  “I think, if she were closer to your generation, she might have done as Mary did, and pushed her way in with the men to have her say.  But she wouldn’t ever do something so improper.” 

“She’s going to hate me, then?” Edith ventured, but with humor.  “Is that why I’ve not been properly introduced?”

“You’ve not been properly introduced because she lives in Essex and only arrived here this morning.  I’d imagined -”  he stopped.

“Yes?” Edith prompted.

“Well I heard about you helping the tenant farmers, during the war.  Driving a tractor.”

“She’d be horrified?”

“I thought I might somehow contrive to arrange for her to come calling and find you astride a tractor at Locksley.  I’ve no idea how I meant to manage that, honestly, but – we were dreadful children, she and I, we lived to torment one another.  That hasn’t changed terribly much in the intervening years, I’m afraid – all in fun, of course,” he hastened to add.  “I don’t mean to imply that I’d want to see you embarrassed -” 

“You really do like the idea,” Edith interrupted, her voice gone soft and wistful.  “Of me driving a tractor.”

“Well, we – we met over discussion of farm equipment, didn’t we?” Anthony offered, abashedly.  “I guess the notion became stuck in my mind, you and machines.”

“Why,” Edith implored, “Why, Anthony, weren’t these the thoughts filling your head last night?”

“It wasn’t my own future happiness that concerned me.”

“And it didn’t occur to you that that very same vision would make me deliriously, insensibly happy?”

“There are times – there will continue to be times, when the very concept of happiness, the surety of even one good thing in the world, will be beyond my understanding.  This is what I hope you understand, what I wished to spare you; I won’t mean drag you into my misery, but I fear I may.  Nights are worst, interminable and without any memory of the promise of a morning.”

“It’s my days that drag on,” Edith returned; gently, not without sympathy, but entirely unyielding.  “It’s that stretch of bright morning that makes me look at the windows like the bars of a cell.  Makes me think of jumping.  Oh, not really,” Edith hastened to add, at his startled flinch.  “I’m too stubborn a creature for that.  But there are times when the idea is dreadfully appealing, if only for the moment there’d be between the air and the earth.”

He moved her just a little bit away, needing to see her face more clearly – to touch the hope in her expression, even as she spoke of despair.  The tears were dry on her cheeks now, her complexion nearing its accustomed hue. 

“What a pair we are,” Anthony murmured, and she turned to kiss his thumb. 

And that was that. 

“I’ll call the priest in here, if you don’t mind,” he suggested.  “Rather than throw everyone from the church.” 

“I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard in weeks,” Edith agreed.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this presumes that Edith's career has followed canon, that she still write that letter to the editor, still got the job at the Sketch, and that Michael Gregson is still (IMO, YMMV) a complete douchebag. If you ship that, skip this.

“How was London?” Anthony asked as they sat down to dinner (she with a stack of letters and a notebook and he with one of the dozen papers he had delivered daily and which, on busy days, he might not finish reading until dinner was upon them.  He was still in the same coat he’d worn to visit a tenant with a crumbling pasture wall that afternoon, and he could smell the soot of the train on her, and between the two of them they thoroughly horrified the staff – which rather pleased him, really.)

“Oh, fine,” Edith answered, very quickly and a touch too brightly.  He glanced up from his paper, giving her a questioning look; she smiled, but it was the nervous, desperate smile of their courtship – a smile he hadn’t seen on her face in weeks now.  He wasn’t especially happy to see it back. 

But she said nothing else, looked down, and applied her fork to her steak and kidney pie. 

He watched her a moment, then folded his paper beside him – the article he still wanted to read (though it had rather lost his attention, now) facing up, and started in on his own meal.  He glanced between the words and his wife as he ate, feeding himself mechanically; she said nothing for several minutes, which wasn’t, in itself, unlike her.  Though their marriage was new yet, they’d already fallen into the habit of comfortable silences, and had shared many a cozily pre-occupied meal. 

This wasn’t one such.  Edith paid so much attention to scooping up bits of crust that the fate of the empire might have depended on it.  Her notebook was set aside, her letters stacked tidily and ignored despite that he could see several yet unopened, and that wasn’t like her at all. 

“Still getting on well with your editor?” he ventured; perhaps the fellow hadn’t liked her latest column. 

Edith dropped her fork, the metal ringing against the china, and looked up at him with round, frightened eyes. 

“What is it?” he demanded instantly.  “What’s the matter?”

“I – I don’t know how to tell you,” Edith answered; the look she was giving him was imploring. 

“Something happened in London,” he guessed; that much was obvious.

“Y-yes,” she stammered.  “Yes, I suppose something did happen.”

Nothing truly catastrophic, then, if she had to suppose that there had been an event at all – but still, something that had upset her badly. 

“Did Mr Gregson not like your column?  Will you have to re-write it?”  Surely she could simply tell him that?  For all the pride that he took in her accomplishments, she couldn’t think he’d shame her for her failures, could she? 

But then, considering her family, perhaps she could think precisely that. 

She hadn’t responded, and was looking once more down at her plate. 

“We all have upsets, dearest,” Anthony offered.  “It’d be a boring world if everyone succeeded at everything on the first attempt.”

“That’s not it,” she told plate.  “He – he liked my column.  Very much, in fact.”  The last was said with a wry tilt of her head and a rather alarmingly cynical smile, and Anthony began to get a cold, dreadful feeling on the matter.

“But it was Mr Gregson who upset you,” he guessed – only it wasn’t really a guess. 

“Mr Gregson -”  Edith began, and stopped.  Stared into the half of a pie left on her plate as if it might provide her the words she lacked, if only she stared hard enough.  “That is to say, Mr Gregson offered -” And stopped again. 

“Edith.”  Anthony was a bit astonished at how calm, how level his own voice sounded.  “Did he touch you?”

Her head snapped up.  “Oh, no!  No, nothing – nothing like that!” she answered instantly, and perhaps it was something in his own face that made her reach across the table for his hand.  He caught her fingers and clutched them as hard as he dared and knew only that he could breathe again.  “But -”  And air again became scarce.

She couldn’t seem to finish the sentence, though her hand clung to his with a strength one would never suspect, to look at her. 

Anthony gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze before pulling free, and – hurrying, as much out of his own anxiety as in deference to the nakedly miserable look on her face – found his way around the table, to her side, where he knelt beside her chair.  It took some arranging to have both of her hands in his one, placing first one and then the other upon her knees - and oh but the pliancy of her was terrifying - and then covering them both with his palm.  She had such small, fine hands. 

“I don’t want you to do anything rash,” she said, and that was when he understood that part of her terror was for him.

“I’d like to do something rash just on account of his having put that look on your face,” Anthony confessed, “but if you want a promise that I won’t be getting into any duels, you can have it.  If – if needs must, we will involve the police.”

“No, no, it’s – thank you,” she said with a sudden rush of feeling where her voice had been so small and quiet up to then.  “Thank you so, so much for – for thinking that first, and not – not suspecting me.  Thank you for trusting me.” 

“Of course I trust you,” he responded instantly and, finding the words lacking, grasped one of her hands and brought it to his lips.  He placed a lingering kiss on her knuckles before returning the hand to its partner and giving them both a pat.  He set his own hand on her knee.  She was tense, faintly trembling; likely it wasn’t the done thing to begin massaging one’s wife’s thigh in the middle of the dining room – not that he and Maude hadn’t gotten up to all sorts of things in the dining room, but things were still so new, with Edith. 

She didn’t seem to mind.

Honestly, Edith didn’t seem to _notice._ But it comforted _him,_ damn it all. 

“I’d have you at my back in the trenches, except that I’d never wish you there,” Anthony said, to her silence.  “Do you know, I bet you’d be a crack shot – you’ve a steady hand and a sharp eye.” 

Now what on earth had made him say that?  He had no idea – not that it wasn’t honest, but it had nothing to do with the matter at hand. 

“He asked me to be his mistress,” Edith blurted.  “And he tried to kiss me – he didn’t manage it, he never touched me, but he did try.” 

There was a funny ringing sound in his ears, rather like the silent echo of an explosion.  It was only when she flinched that he realized his hand had tightened on her leg; he loosened his fingers instantly, then smoothed the fabric of her skirt in slow, soothing motions, just watching the flow of the silk beneath his fingers and counting his breaths. 

There weren’t any more trains to London at this time of night anyway.  Though there was always the car.  

“Of course I shoved him away and told him no,” Edith hastened to add, drawing his eyes back up to her face at the ridiculousness of that.

“Oh, dearest, of course you did,” he agreed.

“I was afraid you might think – with all the troubles we had, coming together, and how I know you still doubt yourself, how you’re haunted - I was so afraid -”  She stopped and breathed.  “But you’re not afraid at all.” 

“Of being less than you deserve?  Always,” Anthony countered.  “But that you might betray me?  Never.” 

“I’ve been such a child,” Edith said, bitterly angry.  “Having lunches and joking and thinking – well, I suppose I thought it was quite wonderful to be treated just the same as any man, to be respected for my mind, as an equal.  To be spoken to in such a familiar way by such a worldly person.  I was so proud of myself, of the place I thought I was carving out.  I can’t believe I was so naïve, so incredibly stupid.” 

“There’s no shame in thinking better of a person than they deserve,” Anthony countered.

She gave a very bitter laugh, and if he hadn’t already wanted to put his fist right through Michael Gregson’s nose, that sound would have done it. 

“Oh yes there is,” Edith insisted.  “When you’re always thinking people are sincere, and they never are – if you can’t learn a lesson so often repeated, what can you call that except pathetic?  And he said -”  She stopped to sniff, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand like a child. 

Anthony scrambled to produce a handkerchief, which she accepted with a watery smile, and proceeded to use to completely obscure her face, pressing it to her eyes with both hands. 

“He said I was still welcome to write for him,” Edith said from behind the square of cloth.  “That I was still welcome at the Sketch – he said it like he was doing me a favor, said it was doubtful I’d find a place elsewhere, with so little experience, and having left one publication so quickly.  I’d seem flighty, unreliable, if I tried to – to sell myself elsewhere -”

“He used those words?” Anthony asked; there was that calm and gentle voice again, completely at odds with the way he’d had to remove his hand from her person before he ended up leaving entirely accidental bruises.  It kept making a fist, entirely without consulting his brain.  Or perhaps in consultation with the same part of his brain that, no matter how he tried to calm himself and focus on his distraught wife as a gentleman should, kept reminding him what a satisfying crack a breaking jaw could make. 

“Oh, he said worse than that,” Edith admitted, finally lowering the handkerchief from her face.  “And all so very, very politely – so very concerned for my happiness, the wretch.” 

She looked blotchy and terrible and forget broken jaws, he just wanted to shoot the man.  No fuss, no bother, just shoot him, like one might a wolf among the sheep.  He deserved no greater consideration. 

“What will you do?” Anthony asked. 

“You won’t forbid me to keep writing for him?” Edith asked, clearly shocked.

“I wouldn’t feel right about it,” he told her, “though I don’t like the idea of you in a room with that man again.  If he laid a hand on you, Edith, I’d kill him.”

“I think I put him quite firmly in his place,” Edith offered, shrugging.  “But I can’t be sure of that, can I?  I keep thinking that I must have said something, or done something – entirely unintentionally! – just _something,_ to have made him think -”

“You did nothing,” Anthony interrupted, voice hard.

“How can you know?  You weren’t there,” Edith protested.

“I know because I know you, and I know his sort, and that tells me all I need to know about what transpired,” he insisted.  “You are not to blame, not in any part.” 

“You really wouldn’t forbid me?” Edith asked again.

“Your writing is your own,” Anthony answered.  “I’ve no more right to tell you how to use such a gift than I would have to tell a bird how to fly.  But – no more lunches, perhaps?”

“Oh good God, no,” Edith agreed fervently.  “I think I’d be ill.”  She paused.  “I could send my columns by post, from now on, if you really … ?”

“You’re afraid he’s right,” Anthony guessed.  “That you won’t find another place if you abandon this one so soon.”

“Do you know that he’s not?” she asked.

“I wish I did, but I’ve spent my life reading papers, not writing them,” Anthony admitted.  “I’ve no real idea how the business works.”

“Me either,” Edith confessed. 

“You’ll learn,” Anthony assured her. 

“You’re not going to tell me that I don’t need to write for a paper, that I ought to take up, oh, I don’t know, embroidery?”

“If you take up embroidery,” Anthony said, quite seriously, “I shall send you straight to bed and fetch a doctor.”

She laughed, and then she seemed to melt from her chair, settling on his knees in a puddle of silk with her arms about his neck and her nose tucked beneath his jaw.  “You do know I’m unbearably happy with you, don’t you?” she asked, voice muffled; he could feel her lips moving against his throat.  “That no woman in the world is happier in her choice of husband?”

Ah.  So _that_ was what the bastard had suggested, then – that the poor young thing married to the old cripple might seek satisfaction elsewhere.  Having no knowledge of their past troubles, he wouldn’t have known that there were no words on Earth less likely to move her.

“I know,” Anthony said, and then added more softly, tilting his head down close over hers, “but I do like hearing it.”

“I’m very, very happy,” Edith repeated emphatically.  While crying into his shirt. 

“No, you’re really not,” Anthony sighed, “Not at this moment, and I can’t do a dashed thing about it, either, and I’d like to break that bastard’s neck.” 

She drew back to look into his face, round-eyed.  “I’ve never heard you speak that way,” Edith said softly. 

“Are you horrified?” he asked, but without real fear; the look on her face was not one of horror.

“No,” she said, burrowing in close again as she spoke.  “ _I_ wanted to break his neck.”

“Did you slap him?”

“No.”

“Pity,” Anthony said, and waited for a giggle that didn’t come.  He frowned.  “Edith?” he asked.

“I threw an inkwell at him,” came a small voice.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I waver on how I feel about what I've written here, in feminist terms. On the one hand, Edith is very passive and is going to continue to write for someone who has made it clear what he's after, and it's not her brain. And Ouch. On the other hand . . this is the sort of bullshit women in her position (attempting to enter a "man's profession") had to put up with for the majority of the last century. The vague threats I have Gregson making here, that he could ruin her future career if she doesn't stay on with him? Not empty. He could. He likely would. Because his whole society has trained him to think that he's entirely entitled to do so; that she is less than respectable just for being there and thus open to less-than-respectful treatment, that she is the one out of place and he was doing her a favor to begin with. Very few people would blame him; he could outright SAY he employed her because he had a crush and let her go when that proved fruitless, and HE would get sympathy for it. She 'lead him on' - by being there at all. That was how the world worked (and still sometimes does). 
> 
> . . . so while it'd be emotionally satisfying to have her tell him off, leave, and go find a better job . . I'm not sure how realistic it would be. Some women managed it, but a lot of others didn't. We'll see where this thread of storyline goes, I'm not sure I'm done with it, but for this as it stands - I think she's making a wise, if not especially daring or empowered, decision here. She's swallowing her pride in order to keep her voice, and I think that's deserving of respect too.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place after the first chapter and before the second, at the point where Edith gets the offer to write for the Sketch, and is mostly me shamelessly projecting all over the characters. I love the woods at night. Total fluff.

“Poor Carson,” Anthony murmured.  Edith glanced to the side in time to catch his faint, wry smile, barely visible in the dark.

“He’s known I could drive for years,” she protested, from the driver’s seat.

“Knowing and seeing are two different things, dearest.  And I think he may have expected marriage to settle you.” 

“But I’m quite settled in,” Edith insisted, though she was smiling a little back.  “I look forward to many more years of ghastly awkward dinners, followed by a nice drive home in the moonlight to clear my head.”

“And that, dearest, is why I say ‘poor Carson’,” Anthony retorted.  “Bad enough when we arrived with you at the wheel, but when he realized he couldn’t have the car brought around, that he’d have to show you from the drawing room to the garage?  He may never recover.” 

“If I’m not permitted to drive to and from these things, _I_ may never recover,” she answered.  “ _You_ might never recover from the blistering I’d give your ears, without something to take my mind off it.” 

“We can decline the invitation,” Anthony offered.  “More often than we do, at least, if not always.”

“I won’t give them the satisfaction,” she said, and he raised his good hand in a gesture of surrender.

For perhaps a mile or so, traversed at no great speed, there was only the sound of the engine and the night-singing insects and the occasional call of an owl. 

“I do rather -”  Anthony began, at the same time Edith blurted out, “‘And when may she expect an offer to appear on the London stage?’” in a rather accurate impersonation of the Dowager Countess's voice. She cast him an apologetic glance.  “I’m sorry, I interrupted you.”

“Perhaps we’ll just drive around a bit?” Anthony suggested. 

“She just says the most dreadful things, sometimes, and no one ever calls her to account for it,” Edith said, then sighed.  “And here I’d promised the drive would calm me.  Save your ears.”

“Why I suggested a longer drive, dearest,” he answered.  “Don’t worry for my ears, I’ll hold up.  I was going to say that I rather liked this.  Drives together.  It’s  - well, it’s our thing, isn’t it?  Would have been scandalous to take you out after dark, then, of course, just to drive.”

“It’s scandalizing enough people now, I assure you,” Edith said.  “ ‘Poor Carson.’”

“I dare say the Dowager Countess would need her smelling salts,” Anthony replied, in a peculiar tone of voice that had Edith turning to look at him, brows drawn together.  “If you turned to the right, just up ahead,”  He gestured at the upcoming crossroads.  Left would take them towards Locksley.  “If she knew, at any rate.”

“And why would I do that?” Edith asked slowly, amused and a bit puzzled. 

“The road that way winds us through a patch of forest,” Anthony said, paused, and added, “I don’t suppose proper young ladies sneak out of their bedrooms to go looking for adventures in the woods after dark, do they?” 

“But young gentlemen do?” Edith guessed.

“Boys will do,” he confirmed. 

“I wish I had,” Edith says.  “It sounds marvelously exciting.”

“It was, most times, it really was,” Anthony agreed.  “At other times it was mostly scratches and rashes that were difficult to explain.” 

She laughed, and took the right-hand turn, and asked, “These woods?”

“Oh, no, we stuck to the estate,” Anthony said.  “My cousins and I.  They used to visit for the summers.  But there’s no road through the woods at Locksley and I wasn’t actually imagining that we’d get out of the car – scratches and rashes, and all that.  I think your gown would be worse for the experience as well.” 

“What, then?” she asked, as the roadside began to be dotted with trees, drawing them into a thickening dark. 

“A little farther, I think,” he said, as the trees grew closer around them.  “Perhaps just up ahead, there, before the road curves. 

“I should stop?” Edith asked.

“Yes, I think we’re far enough from civilization, here,” he said, and she brought the car to a noisy idle.  “If you’ll stop the engine, dearest?” 

She did, and pointed out, “We’re not very far from civilization; if I haven’t lost my bearings, we’re between two farms, neither house more than a quarter mile from where we sit.”

“Hush,” Anthony scolded, but with a gentle warmth to his voice.  “Just wait a moment.” 

“Alright,” Edith agreed; the engine ticked and clanked as it cooled, but otherwise they sat in a little pocket of silence, the songs of the crickets far off.  “What am I waiting for?” 

“Nothing grand,” Anthony hastened to tell her, with a tone almost of excuse, of apology.  “It’s only – well, you’ll see, or at least I hope so.  You don’t mind humoring a daft old man?”

“I might,” Edith countered, and gestured that he should turn a little towards her, so that she could twist around in her seat and lean back against his chest.  “But I don’t mind humoring you.”  His right arm lay between them in its sling, so that his hand was tucked into the small of her back; his left came around her and wove their fingers together in her lap. 

It was a slow, subtle thing; first one cricket began again to chirp, practically under their wheels, from what Edith could tell.  Then some creature rustled the leaves.  Then more, and some manner of night-singing bird – something with a long, warbling cry – took up again, over their heads.  The crickets increased.  She couldn’t have said what sort of creatures move around them, not from the subtle sounds they made in their passing, but the woods suddenly seemed as busy as a train station – but not so rushed, so loud and pressing in.  This was a gentler immersion, not unlike sinking underwater. 

Anthony settled them back against the door, so that her gaze was directed skyward.  Her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, so that it became less complete, and she could make out patches of sky between the leaves of the trees, just glimpses – and then, some minutes later, the faintest, farthest pricks of stars.  A shape moved, swift and pale, up high and at the corner of her eye – an owl, she guessed, its passage utterly silent. 

The air was chill and a bit damp, and there was a little breeze, enough to be unpleasantly cold though the fine material of her evening gown – but her back was so warm, Anthony’s arm around her seemed so very, very warm.  Almost burning hot. 

“Oh,” Edith murmured.  She felt almost dizzy, staring up; as though she could feel the world turning beneath her, and the stars flying in their courses. 

“You like it?” Anthony asked, hushed.

“It’s like a whole different world,” Edith whispered.  “It’s so . .  . ”  But she didn’t know quite what it was so.  Grand, but not the grandeur of palaces and monuments.  Vast, but in a way that pressed close.  “I wish I _could_ get out of the car.  But I’d be afraid to, at the same time.” 

“It _is_ frightening,” he agreed, still in the softest of voices.  “It – it makes one feel privileged to be alive, doesn’t it?  I’ve needed the reminder.”

Edith twisted around in sudden alarm, at that, trying to make out his expression.  In the dark he was all pale shapes and shadowed hollows, his features gone sharp and otherworldly.  “You didn’t say – we might have left early.  You know I don’t care who we offend if -”

“No, dearest, I’m well enough tonight,” he hurried to assure her, paused a moment, and added, “I’m not sure dinner with your family is ever going to make my list of favorite occupations, but they don’t get under my skin the way they used to.  No, this was for you.”

“For me,” she echoed, rather insensibly.

“How weigh the words of the Dowager Countess now?” he asked, and she gave a rather astonished laugh before turning once more to face away and let herself settle back into the warmth of him. 

“Like feathers,” Edith murmured.  “Like dust.” 

“I’ve wanted to do this since – well, since I came home,” he admitted.  “I didn’t have the nerve to go out on foot, alone after dark, though, even on my own blasted estate, and I couldn’t ask the chauffeur to drive me into the middle of the wood at night and sit there, could I?  I’d appear a mad man, wallowing in my own melancholy.  Made do with open windows, mostly, when the walls started pressing in.”

“Don’t say this was for me, then,” Edith countered.  “And don’t think I’m going to let you get away with all that nonsense about infirmity again, either – I’m borrowing a pair of trousers from a footman and you’re going to show me where you snuck off to as a boy, some night very soon.  We’ll pack a midnight picnic.” 

“Run mad into the woods together?”

“Precisely.” 

“You are so lovely, like this,” Anthony murmured, leaning down over the crow of her head and burying his nose in her hair, just behind her ear.  “Pity we can’t spend the night this way.”

“Can’t we?” Edith asked wistfully. 

“If we don’t turn up home sometime soon, we’re going to alarm the staff.  They’ll ring Downton.”

“And then my father will set the hounds after us,” Edith sighed.  “You’re right.”  She lifted herself upright reluctantly and then, as Anthony tugged at his shirt and coat, trying to put himself to rights, turned and kissed him.

It was a fervent rush of a kiss, and she could just make out the bemused half of a smile it left on his face.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking a break from the Edith/Anthony (they're not even IN this chapter! *gasp!* to fix Sybil instead. 
> 
> (Historical accuracy may have left the building on this one, though I did try to keep it believable. I looked up side-effects of common anesthetic agents used in 1920! I did RESEARCH! There was an ACTUAL PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL involved in this research! … but yeah I have no idea if they understood that morphine + nursing baby = bad, at the time, or what the procedure was for breast pumping. Made up the first one totally for the sake of happy ending, just kinda vagued right on through the second.) 
> 
> Warnings: pregnancy complications, medicine in the 1920s, c-section

“Tom!” Isobel exclaimed as he entered, hurrying up with her hands clasped.  “Is there news?”

“No, Mrs Crawley, no news,” he told her, and smiled a bit uncertainly. 

“Oh.  Well.”  That seemed to bring her up short.  “Well, it’s a pleasure to see you regardless.  Mrs Bird -” she turned to her housekeeper.  “Mr Branson and I will have tea in the drawing room.”

Mrs Bird nodded and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, while Tom followed Isobel into her drawing room and sat, rather uncomfortably, on one of her very fine chairs.  The place wasn’t as grand as Downton, not by half, but it seemed somehow less sturdy.  He might worry about his welcome to sit in a chair at Downton, but at least he didn’t worry that the chair would break.

Isobel sat with her hands folded on her knees, on the edge of her seat, smiling that eager, over-proper smile that Tom gathered she thought was polite.  Not that it was rude, it was just _obvious,_ and he didn’t quite see the point in not just speaking plainly if your face was going to make your thoughts as plain as any words – and hers did. 

She’d been kind to him, though, and she lived a damn sight closer to the real world than anybody up in the big house. 

“Is Sybil well?” Isobel prompted, when the silence had dragged, Tom still trying to gather his words into a question he could think of asking. 

“I think she’s not,” he said – because hadn’t he just been thinking that it was better to speak plainly?  He might as well, he decided, practice what he’d like to preach.  

“Oh.”  Isobel drew back in her chair.  “Oh dear.  Is Dr Clarkson with her?  Why are you here, then, and not with her?  Surely someone else could have -”

“Thing is, Ma’am – beggin’ your pardon,” he added, though she didn’t really seem to mind being interrupted, “that Dr Clarkson saw her just last night, and said she was fine.” 

“But you don’t believe him?” Isobel asked; she didn’t scoff and she didn’t speak down to him like he was a slow child, bless her, and that was why he was here.

“It’s no judgment on him,” Tom hurried to say, “it’s that she won’t tell how she’s truly feeling.”

“But surely if he examined her -”

“Only enough to say the baby wasn’t coming just yet,” Tom said.  “He can’t have been with her five minutes.  And why should he be, when all she’ll say if her Ladyship is in the room is that she’s fine, perfectly fine.  But that’s not what I see.”

“And what do you see?” Isobel pressed – she didn’t sound convinced, exactly, but she wasn’t dismissing him, either.  “You are aware, I hope, that some discomfort at this stage is entirely normal.  As is some worry.” 

“I know, it’s just – I have sisters,” Tom tried to explain.  “Older sisters, three of them, and a good half-dozen nieces and nephews.  And I just don’t ever remember them being like this.”

“Every woman is different,” Isobel pointed out.  “And perhaps older sisters aren’t likely to confide such intimate details to a younger brother?”

“Maybe,” Tom conceded.  “Maybe I’m worrying for nothing, I hope to God I am, it’s just -”

“Why don’t you tell me her symptoms,” Isobel suggested gently.  “I have some medical knowledge, and, of course, some experience of childbearing.”

“I remembered you did,” Tom said, giving her a grateful look, then flushing at his own words.  “That you’re involved with the hospital, I mean, not – I mean, obviously, you’ve been a mother, but I meant -”

“Never mind that,” she reassured him, reaching across the small space between them to give his hand a reassuring pat.  “Now tell me about Mrs Branson.”

His eyes widened at that; no one called her Mrs Branson here, no one.  He thought they’d all like to forget that she _was_ Mrs Branson, really.  “Thank you,” he blurted.  “Really, thank you.”

“Her symptoms,” Isobel reminded him.

“She’s just so tired all the time,” he began.

“To be expected, and no cause for alarm,” Isobel assured him.

“And her feet swell –

“As did mine, and many a woman’s,” she interjected. 

“And she’s got the worst headache, all the time, and sometimes she just seems . . just not herself, or like she’s not there, I don’t know.” he struggled for the words.  “She gets dizzy, but that’s not even it.  Is that normal?” he asked, desperately hopeful and yet somehow certain, just _sure_ in a way he couldn’t put to words that something _wasn’t right._

“It may be,” Isobel answered.  “She’s kept these things from Dr Clarkson?”

“She thinks if she complains at all, they’ll all blame me,” Tom says.  “For upsetting her, for making her travel, for leaving her alone – probably for marrying her and getting her this way in the first place.”  He stopped and shook his head.  “I wake up and she’s awake, always, and sometimes it seems like she can’t catch her breath, but I ask her and she says it’s nothing.  It’s _not_ bloody nothing.  Begging your pardon.”

“She can’t catch her breath,” Isobel repeated back.  “And she has a headache, a severe headache?”

“She does,” Tom agreed, watching her closely.  “What?  What is it?”

“Do her hands swell?  Or her face?”

“Not her face, but her hands, sometimes,” he answered.  “What is it?  Tell me, please!”

“Well it may be nothing,” Isobel hedged.  “I don’t mean to alarm you.”

“I’m alarmed already!” Tom exclaimed.

“You could be describing symptoms of toxemia,” Isobel said. 

“So what do you do for that?” In other circumstances he might have been ashamed of the naked desperation in his voice, but not here, not over this.  He’d get on his knees and beg the king of England if it’d make Sybil well, well and safe and not in danger on account of the condition he’d put her in or the trials he’d put her through.

“There isn’t much to be done, except -”

“Except what?” Tom demanded.

“The condition is alleviated by birth,” Isobel explained.  “But the process thereof is a danger.  Rest, with the feet elevated, may help -”

“She’s already resting,” Tom protested.  “Maybe not with her feet up, but she’s resting, she’s been in bed for days now.”

“Where bed rest does not reduce the symptoms, caesarian section may be the only option,” Isobel concluded, her voice gone strident in that way it did when she got on about some cause or other. 

“Caesarian,” Tom repeatedly numbly. 

“It means -”

“I know what it means!” Tom interjected.  “It means cutting her open!”

“We may be fretting for nothing,” Isobel attempted to reassure him. 

“But you’ll come back with me,” Tom asked, and almost reached for her – as if he’d drag her bodily back to the big house with him.  Hell, he _would,_ if it came to it.  “You’ll come back and you’ll tell her what it could be, tell her that she’s got to tell the truth – we’ve got to have the doctor back -”

“Of course I’d be happy to call on Mrs Branson,” Isobel assured him.  “In fact, there’s no time like the present, is there?  I’ll just tell Mrs Bird we won’t be needing that tea.”  And he could have wept with gratitude. 

Isobel paused at the door.  “It still may be nothing,” she reminded him, smiling a tight little smile that told Tom all he needed to know – she didn’t believe that either. 

***

“No,” Lord Grantham pronounced, three hours later, color rising in his face.  The entire Crawley family – at least, those who still lived at Downton - stood in the hall outside Sybil’s room, where Tom had just been.  Her concern was all for the baby, not a thought wasted for herself – but they’d arrived at one conclusion, all the same. 

“No, absolutely not, I won’t hear of it,” Robert was ranting.  “Sir Philip Tapsell will be arriving _tomorrow_ , he is an _expert,_ we will wait on his opinion.”

“Tomorrow may well be too late,” Dr Clarkson argued.  “Your daughter could go into labor at any moment, and once that begins, the risk to her life increases exponentially.  It’s fortunate, extremely fortunate, that we have become aware of her condition now, while something may still be done about it.”

“Something,” Robert repeated indignantly.  “A operation, which you yourself say involves great risk -”

“Not as much risk as allowing her to deliver naturally,” Dr Clarkson countered. 

“I find that hard to believe,” Robert scoffed.  “I may not know much about it -”

“No, you don’t know much about it,” Cora interrupted, at which Robert’s brows climbed toward his hairline and his face went from red to purple.  “If Dr Clarkson says this is what we must do, then we must do it – if, of course, it’s what Sybil decides.  Tom and Sybil.  This is their decision, not ours.”

“I am still master here -” Robert began indignantly.

“Then we’ll leave,” Tom interrupted, not loudly, but in a tone that left no room for argument.  “I’ll take a room at the pub if that’s what you want, and Sybil can join me there once she’s recovered, with our child, if you won’t have us back in your house.  But I’m not waiting, and Sybil feels the same.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Robert shouted. 

“Yes, don’t be ridiculous, she can’t recover in a pub,” Isobel said.  “Of course you’ll stay with me.”

“I’ll thank you to interfere no further!” Robert pointed an accusing finger in Isobel’s direction.

“I say -” Matthrew began to object, moving himself between Robert and his mother. 

“Enough of this, it’s decided!” Tom shouted over all of them and then, in the ensuing silence, turned to Dr Clarkson and asked, “Tell me what we need to do.” 

***

Sybil woke sharply but incompletely, first aware of a great pain in her belly but without the will or energy to do anything about it, even so far as to open her eyes or cry out. 

Consciousness drifted; when it returned, she was wretching, the burn of bile flooding into her sinuses and the pain in her middle was white-hot, unbearable, obliterating thought.  She knew there were hands on her, turning her to her side, wiping her face, speaking to her.  She thought she knew that voice.

There was something very important that she ought to be remembering, but the pain and the horrible nausea swallowed it.

Her next waking was slower, closer to natural; the nausea was present, but less, and the pain seemed oddly distant.  The room swam, and its swimming seemed oddly soothing, almost funny.  She had enough presence of mind to suppose that she had probably been given a great deal of morphine, and the thought almost made her smile.  So this was what the denizens of opium dens sought; it was, she supposed, rather pleasant, if very odd.  Maybe it would be less so were it not at war with an opposite sensation, with the pain that grounded her as surely as a tether. 

“Sybil?  Sybil, darling, are you awake?” She could turn her head to the voice, now – to Tom, that was who that was, that was Tom.  And there should be –

“Where – where is -” But she couldn’t remember who she was asking for, and she floated away again. 

There was a new pain, a burning pressure in her breasts; there was a sound, too, a sound that somehow caught that pain and pulled on it, pulled her into consciousness.  A cry.

A baby.  A baby crying.  _Her_ baby crying. 

“Where is she?” Sybil cried out weakly; she blinked and tried to struggle upright, but the pain in her belly was still there, sharper now, and more sensible.  The room came into focus somewhat more easily; Tom sat on the empty bed next to hers, disheveled and grey, and there was a nurse and a strange woman in common clothes, and the strange woman was putting Sybil’s baby to her breast. 

Tom turned at the first sound of her voice, all but falling from the bed and skidding, on his knees, to her side.  That still seemed a little funny, so perhaps there was still some opiate in her blood.  “Oh darling,” he gasped, tears coming to his eyes; he grasped her hand almost too tight.  “Oh, you’re awake.  I’ve been so scared.  So scared.”

“Can I see her?” Sybil asked, wrapping her fingers around Tom’s thumb but staring fixedly over his shoulder at a small head covered in the faintest trace of a dark down.

“How’d you know?” Tom asked, and smiled a little, and at that she looked to him, frowning.

“Know what?” she asked.

“It’s a girl,” Tom said.  “You were calling her ‘she’.  You knew.  Could you hear us talking around you, all this time?”

“I – I don’t – no,” Sybil said, suddenly confused, and where laughter had been close to the surface, tears were closer.  “I don’t know how – I want – can’t I hold her?  Who is that?  Can’t I – I want to do that -”  She reached one hand out toward the plain woman on the other bed – the plain _girl,_ really, she was pale and blonde and couldn’t have been more than sixteen.  That child had milk in her breasts, had a child of her own?  “Please, I want to see my baby.”.

“We had to get a wetnurse, just until you woke up,” Tom explained, and turned and gestured anxiously at the girl, who stood, wide-eyed and wary, and came closer to the bed. 

The nurse stood at the same time, coming to Sybil’s side and putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.  “I expect you’re sore, Mum,” the nurse murmured into her ear.  “You can’t feed the baby yet, not until all the drug’s out of your system, but I can show you what to do about that.”

Sybil barely heard her, though her breasts were leaking, the front of her simple shift going wet and rapidly cold.  The baby was latched on to the girl’s breast, sucking with perfect little pink lips, eyes shut, dark lashes resting on round, pink cheeks.  Sybil tried again to reach for her, and Tom took her shaking hand and guided it to the baby’s head.

She was warm, and soft, and alive – so perfectly, wholly alive, this tiny creature they’d made. 

“This is Agnes,” Tom said, nodding at the girl, who smiled uncertainly.  “She’s from the village.” 

“M’lady,” Agnes said, and bobbed a little, as much as she could with her arms full of baby.  Sybil thought she ought to correct her – she wasn’t m’lady anymore, she was just Mrs Branson, but she was so deliriously, weightlessly happy to _be_ Mrs Branson, in this moment, that it stole all the words she had and replaced them with helpless tears and hiccupping, which hurt, and she had no choice but to lay down.  She turned her head on the pillow so she could keep the baby in her sight. 

“We made a person,” she finally managed to whisper, eyes sliding to Tom – and what a foolish thing to say, what else would they have made, a kitten?  But Tom seemed to understand, leaning down over her oh so carefully, so carefully, and kissing her – just barely touching her lips. 

Then the nurse banished both Tom and Agnes and showed Sybil how to empty her own aching breasts, into a pan, and something about that made her weep again.  With that done, she was alone, and sleep crept over her once more. 

By the next morning the pain was dull and familiar, and she was able to sit up.  Her mother visited, fussing and cooing over the baby and then crawling up onto the bed to kneel at Sybil’s back and brush her hair.  Tom held the baby, who seemed to sleep more than anything else, and took her away once to be fed.  Tomorrow, Dr Clarkson said – tomorrow Sybil could do that herself.  She might be able to hold her tonight.

“What are you calling her?” Cora asked.

Tom looked to Sybil; they’d considered so many names, all of them fraught in one way or another – an Irish name, an English name, a saint’s name, on and on, and it suddenly seemed odd to Sybil that they’d spent rather more time on the possibilities for a girl than for a boy.  Didn’t most people hope for a boy, think first, optimistically, of a boy?  But they’d thought of a girl, and she’d woken up asking for her daughter.  So strange.

They’d never reached a firm decision, though, and it was the lesser of their miracles – the first being that she woke up at all. 

“Isobel,” Sybil pronounced.   “Isobel Marie.” 

Cora’s hands paused in her hair.  Tom smiled – the wide, lopsided, admiring smile that was what had, at the very start, gotten her into all of this.

She’d put a few noses out of joint with that, she was sure, but it would all come right in time. 


End file.
